


Divided We Stand

by VorpalGirl



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant Up Until The Climax of Advent Children Complete, Canon Divergence - Final Fantasy VII:Advent Children Complete, Canonical Character Death, Character-Driven But Plot-Heavy To Be Perfectly Accurate, Death, Decapitation, Expect An Erratic Update Schedule On This, For Want of a Nail, Identity Issues, Lifestream Weirdness (Final Fantasy VII), M/M, Memory Loss, Near Death Experiences, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Zack Fair, Rated For Violence, Remnants (Compilation of Final Fantasy VII), Resurrection, Self-Sacrifice, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Stabbing, Talking To Dead People, longfic, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:25:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VorpalGirl/pseuds/VorpalGirl
Summary: "Need help with this guy?" Zack joked, in canon. Because Cloud didn't need it to defeat the newly-raised Sephiroth.But what if it wasn't a joke; what if Cloudhadneeded the help......what would Zack be willing to sacrifice to give it to him?





	Divided We Stand

**Author's Note:**

> I have had a version of this stewing for a while and for some reason it started eating my brain again, so here we are. Many thanks to LadyKF for advice and brainstorming over the course of several years (yes, really), and recently for some excellent beta-reading; I feel like it's a much better fic and with much more clear direction with her help! :) Could not have done it without you, KF!
> 
> Some quick notes to the reader before you start:
> 
> I promise it's not all doom and gloom by far, but I also recognize everybody's limits for "for-fun" reading are different. Which means I will be honest: there are several common triggers/squicks that are set to come up, especially related to mental health or violence (the latter being what earned this story a bump to "M" to be on the safe side). I know it's a long set of tags, but I tried to be accurate with the obvious ones, and if that kind of content might be an issue for you, please do check the tags before you start.

 

Everything went black.  
  
Then, it was white.  

Pure, blinding white.

He squinted up against it, and wondered why his eyes didn’t water.

Just as he was wondering if he could work up the energy to shield his eyes, there was a shadow leaning over him. A leather glove brushed gently against his cheek, shifting a loose, bloodied spike out of his eyes. A very familiar, very _soft_ voice said:  
  
“Hey, Cloud. Fancy seeing you here.”  
  
As his vision started coming into focus, he made out an equally familiar spiky black hairline…not that he needed to. He’d know _that_ voice ‒ that touch – anywhere.  
  
“Zack,” he whispered.    
  
“Yep.” Zack’s fingers went to his hair, gingerly combing through it for a moment and straightening a few stray spikes. He wasn’t sure he should _enjoy_ being groomed like an actual chocobo so much, given how tired the jokes were at this point, but it _was_ rather nice. At least, coming from Zack it was.

Cloud struggled to make out his features more clearly, but to his frustration, his eyes _still_ couldn’t make sense of Zack’s face as much more than a colorful set of blobs. Knowing it _was_ him was a pleasant surprise, though, and the touch...  
  
He’d forgotten, somewhat, just how _tactile_ Zack had always been. Or how much he had personally missed it, despite being not much of a ‘hugger’ himself.    
  
He briefly wondered if this was the first time Zack had ever done this for him...and realized, with a sharp pang, that it _couldn’t_ have been.

Because it felt too _familiar_ . This act, this _particular_ touch.  
  
If nothing else, he had to have done this all the time for him after Nibelheim. Specifically, after their escape. Back when Cloud had been too mako-poisoned to care for himself, back when Zack had _chosen_ to take care of him, because he had refused at all points to leave Cloud behind.  
  
Zack _had_ to have combed or brushed his hair for him, back then; otherwise, Cloud’s hair would have gotten _hopelessly_ filthy, and matted, become an unhygienic hazard.  
  
And actual combs, he knew, could be hard to come by when you were on the run.  
  
“Guess you did need help after all, huh?” Zack said softly, and for a moment, he thought he was asking about back _then_ , but no. Turned out he wasn’t.  
  
“That’s...that’s okay, buddy,” he added. “ _Most_ people would’ve. Almost _everybody_ would have; this was _Sephiroth_ , you know?”  
  
Oh.  
  
Right.  
  
_Wait..._  
  
“You did your best,” Zack continued. “And you know what? _Your_ best? It was _amazing,_ Cloud. Really. You should be damn proud of yourself. SOLDIER? They didn’t know what they were missin’ with you.”  
  
“Really...?” Cloud said, and was embarrassed to realize just how much he wanted all of that to be true.

He wanted it so badly in fact, that part of him wondered if Zack ‒ kind, patient, _encouraging_ Zack ‒ was just saying that to make him feel better. Like you might to a child. Like _he_ might have said to Marlene or Denzel when they tried their best and still fell short. 

It seemed Zack was going to have none of that, though.  
  
“Really,” Zack confirmed, with a tone so firm it brooked no argument. “You kicked some serious ass out there, buddy.”  
  
Cloud felt something in him relax, though he wasn’t...sure how to take that kind of compliment, which left him resorting to the awkward response of:  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Zack chuckled, and his hand moved from his scalp to gently tap his nose. “Man, _you_ have _got_ to work on your self-esteem, buddy. Not that a big head’s so great either, but there _is_ such a thing as going too far the other direction, you know.”

Cloud snorted, and dryly replied: “Yeah, well. I kinda had other things to worry about that seemed pretty _pressing_. Guess I’ll have to put it on my to-list, huh?”

“You’d better,” Zack said, and Cloud was surprised at the seriousness of his tone; it wasn’t _harsh_ , exactly, but it sounded pretty close to an order.  “And Cloud?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“You’re not alone,” he said quietly. “You _never_ were. You know that, right?”  
  
“I...y-yeah,” Cloud admitted. “I know.”  
  
A humbling thought, given how much he’d been pushing people away lately; another pang, as he thought of Tifa, of Marlene, of Denzel...  
  
“This isn’t over yet,” Zack told him, as if reading his mind. Then again, if Cloud was right about where they were right then, maybe he kinda was. “So don’t worry about it, ‘cause we _got_ this.”  
  
Zack sounded so firm and so sure that Cloud smiled. For a moment, at least. Until something occurred to him.  
  
His throat.  
  
He’d been yelling an awful lot at Sephiroth during the battle; it _had_ started to hurt from it, but...now, somehow, it didn’t. Was this Zack’s doing? Or…  
  
Come to think of it, he’d been in a hell of a lot of pain before. All over, but now he felt kind of...kind of _numb_ , he realized.  
  
That... that was probably a bad sign. Wasn’t it. Especially after…  
  
“Am ‒ am I…?”  
  
He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, though. Not out loud.  
  
Because he had this sudden, strange, lingering sense of _dread_ that made him feel like an ax was hanging over him and it felt ‒ it felt, maybe a little irrationally, as if actually _saying_ what he was wondering, what he was so afraid of being true, would somehow jinx him into making it any truer.  
  
Zack pulled back, out of sight.  
  
“No,” he replied. “You’re not. Not yet. And if _I_ have anything to say about it, you sure as hell won’t be.”  
  
Cloud didn’t need to see his face to know the expression was one many an enemy would tremble at seeing.

 

***

Cloud didn’t need their help, Tifa had said.  
  
They had believed it, at first.  
  
It had seemed a surprisingly reasonable assessment...at first.  
  
But that was before they saw Cloud _pierced through the torso_ by Masamune.

Before they saw the uncontrolled spasms of his body, the way the whole of it tensed and jerked.

Before him going completely slack on the blade.

Before the telltale flicker of a _Bolt spell._

A Bolt spell run through metal that was likely centimeters, at best, from his _heart_ .  
  
He did not hesitate, nor did he check with anyone else on the new plan of action, because even a moment’s thought told him he was the _only_ one who’d be able to reach Cloud in time.

Assuming Cloud wasn’t already dead, at least.  
  
Vincent chose not to dwell on that possibility.  
  
Instead, he wisped down and _barreled_ into Cloud, pulling him off of Masamune’s deadly steel.

It was harder to bring a passenger with him in this form, but not impossible. The bigger concern was that Sephiroth could attack them _again_ , so he needed to get them as far away as he could; however, he still could only bring them _so_ far, because a wound like _that_ would also need closing as quickly as possible for Cloud to survive.

He went as far as he dared.

Dozens of meters, he’d guess.  
  
It still didn’t feel far enough.  
  
The familiar metallic tang of blood greeted him when he returned them to solidity, which he did as quietly as possible, hoping against meager hope that their travel hadn’t been easy to visually track.

A quick assessment of Cloud’s condition was not promising. Eyes glassy, unfocused; skin pale, cold and clammy to the touch. Limbs as limp as a ragdoll.

And all that was ignoring the gaping wound in his... liver, from the looks of it. The blade _seemed_ not to have hit the heart or major arteries, and Cloud _seemed_ to still be breathing ‒ though it was erratic, and disconcertingly shallow. Pulse barely perceptible.

No, worse. Stuttering.  
  
Missed arteries or not, he was on borrowed time and Vincent could afford to waste none of it.  
  
He activated his Mastered Restore.  
  
He also chose not to rely on a miracle; kept part of his attention on Cloud, part of it still on the mass of black and silver tens of meters off to their right. Still prayed in the back of his mind, to whatever gods would listen.

He still placed one hand on Cerberus.

Damn it. A single Curaga wouldn’t be enough; he could tell already. It _was_ helping, was probably the only reason Cloud wasn’t even _worse_ off, probably the only reason he _still_ drew ragged breath, but the _moment_ Vincent stopped casting, he knew it would be needed all over again ‒  
  
‒ movement out of the corner of his eye. His hand tightened on Cerberus.

With the other, he reached for his last, precious Phoenix Down.

Using only Restore, Cloud would still die. That much was clear. There was no choice.

He applied the Phoenix Down.

The movement continued - a flash of black and silver, rapidly incoming.

Safety off.

The golden glow of flesh being knit. Was it working? Would it be enough?

No time to check. He turned, lifting his weapon.

Aimed.

Fired.  
  
Only a moment later did he realize how unnecessary it had been.

It was several, before he could comprehend that the body had already been falling, _before_ his bullets hit.

Which probably had a lot to do with the severed head.

“What…?” he said softly, almost not daring to breathe as it rolled toward him and off to the side.  
  
He swung his gaze from the now-limp corpse of the World’s Greatest Enemy ‒ _Lucrecia’s son_ , a troublesome part of him whispered ‒ to the space behind where he had previously stood.

He should not have been _surprised_ to see someone there, given what he had seen. But frankly, he figured, no one could have blamed him for still being exactly that.   
  
Because not only had this young, black-haired man - splattered with blood, stance and position showing he had been the one to complete that deadly swing - come from seemingly nowhere…  
  
…he was wielding the original Buster Sword.

 


End file.
